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"Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it." Igor Stravinsky |
"Without music, life would be a mistake." Friedrich Nietzsche |
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| As the Camerata stressed individuality, so the voice of the single performer unequivocably stood out in the Renaissance for the first time in the history of Western music. From the Greek chorus to Gregorian Chant, singing had been largely communal, but as the individual was separated from the chorus, a form evolved to accommodate the solo voice: opera. The first opera, Daphne, by the Italian composer Jacopi Peri was performed in 1594. The Renaissance citizens were eager to delve into all the pursuits of knowledge and creativity now available to them. Since great public libraries did not exist, every Renaissance Humanist who aspired to assemble one had to create a room in which to house these artifacts of the new age. The personal library emerged as a consequence, a special room in which to learn and study. It was also a place in which each Humanist could develop his own individuality. Along with the requisite shelves of books, a proper library was equipped with a writing table, where the newly literate individual could express his private thoughts in words. In another corner stood the telescope, a device owned by all who considered themselves part of the new age. The telescope, like the microscope invented around the same time, offered the inquiring eye a way to increase its observational power. These devices were singular: Only one Humanist at a time could peer through either. Gazing at the moon or examining a paramecium was as solitary an endeavor as reading or writing. Another prominent item in the Renaissance Humanist's library was an earth's globe, which represented the triumph of the new Copernican perspective and offered its owner a God's-eye view of the spherical planet any time he was so inclined. Easels were fairly common as well, since the invention of stretched canvas and oil-based paints had allowed painting to become a portable hobby, and virtually every literate person practiced draftsmanship. To be able to draw from direct observation was not only a highly esteemed skill, it was also another way for the Renaissance Humanist to express his singularity. The credo of Humanism, "See the truth and be the complete man," expected nothing less. Thus the library gradually expanded to contain the means to define each person's individuality. The Humanist's library would not be complete without music. Since reading, writing, gazing and drawing were all solitary pursuits, it is no surprise that the Renaissance imperative to individuality gave rise to the most versatile musical instrument ever invented for one player: the keyboard clavichord. At the outset of the Renaissance, small claviers had been developed for personal use. Their sound was tinny because the player had no control over the force with which each string was struck by the hammer; nevertheless the arrangement of the presently used keyboard, common to all later pianos, dates from the early fifteenth century.* (Footnote: The beginning of the modern piano had to wait until 1709, when Bartolomeo Christofori, employed as a full-time keeper of Ferdinand de Medici's harpsichords, invented a mechanism which moderated how each hammer struck each string. This innovation, later refined in Germany, would permit the piano to become an instrument of great range and versatility.) The keyboard clavier-piano was a most perfect instrument. While it could be incorporated into a larger composition, it could also be played alone for one person's solitary enjoyment. On it, one could play chords, different simultaneous parts, and complex pieces, while leaving one's voice free to sing, too. Due to its versatility, it has had composed for it the largest body of eclectic music written expressly for any one instrument; yet, in recognition of its place in the secular sphere, almost none of that music has been sacred. Now the room was complete. The symbol of the Humanist's musical individuality, the clavier-piano, occupied a central place in the library. It joined the writing table, telescope, globe and easel. These devices, along with the books lining the shelves, constituted the heraldry of a new separateness. The Catholic Church, Western civilization's organizing force for a thousand years, discovered a formidable assemblage of new icons arrayed against it. As a result of the ensuing struggle, Christianity was to undergo its own revolution: The Reformation, the crux of which was the belief that an ordinary congregant could read and interpret the Bible without the help of the Vatican.
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